1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a photographing apparatus having a high power zoom function, an image display apparatus, and a display control method of the image display apparatus, the photographing apparatus having a configuration capable of reliably capturing a desired photographing target (object) in the field of view of a viewfinder.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, an image display device that is capable of sequentially converting optical images formed by a photographing optical system into image signals by a photoelectric conversion device or the like and of recording the image signals thus obtained in a recording medium as pieces of image data of a predetermined format, and that reproduces/displays the image data recorded in the recording medium as an image, such as a photographing apparatus, such as a digital camera or a camcorder, configured by including, for example, a liquid crystal display (LCD) is put to practical use and is widely used.
Also, these days, as a photographing optical system applied to this type of photographing apparatus, one having a high power zoom lens whose optical zoom factor is 20× or higher, for example, is being put to practical use. Moreover, in addition, one having a so-called electronic zoom function which enables generation of a further enlarged image by applying predetermined image processing on picked-up image data is widespread. Some photographing apparatuses having this electronic zoom function have an extremely high power zoom function with the zoom factor (optical zoom factor×electronic zoom factor) for the minimum focal length being 80×, for example.
When photographing using this type of photographing apparatus having a high power zoom function, if drastic zooming is performed in a state where setting is on the short focus side, a main object which is intended to be photographed may move out of the field of view of the viewfinder or an image display range of a display device used as the viewfinder (a rear display panel or an EVF (electric view finder)) and the main object may be lost. In this manner, there is an issue that re-capturing of the main object lost from the field of view of the viewfinder into the field of view of the viewfinder (into the image display range) is more difficult as the zoom range is set more to the long focus side (high zoom factor).
With respect to a conventional camera, one which is configured to allow alignment of the direction of the camera with the target position by a simple operation, by a user, of specifying the photographing position or the photographing direction of the camera, such as the surveillance camera disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-69496, for example, is proposed and put to practical use.